International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 26-29, 1998 / Town & Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / Airborne instrumentation used during flight tests is being installed and maintained in a
unique way by operational bomber testers from the Air Force’s 53d Wing. The ability of
the flight test community to test on operational aircraft has always been somewhat
curtailed by the need for advanced forms of instrumentation. Operational fighter flight
test squadrons have aircraft assigned to them, which they modify on as needed basis,
much the same as developmental testers. However, bomber operational test units must
use operational aircraft to accomplish their mission as there are no bombers in the Air
Force’s Air Combat Command (ACC) specifically set aside for operational tests. During
test missions, these units borrow aircraft from operational bomb wings, and then return
them to service with the bomb wing after testing is complete. Yet, the requirement for
instrumentation on these test missions is not much different than that of developmental
testers. The weapon system engineer’s typically require Mil-Std-1553, video, telemetry,
and Global Positioning System (GPS) Time-Space-Position-Information airborne
receiver recordings. In addition, this data must be synchronized with an IRIG-B time
code source, and recorded with the same precision as the data gathered during
development test and evaluation (DT&E). As a result, several techniques have been
developed, and instrumentation systems designed for these operational test units to
incorporate instrumentation on operational aircraft.
Several factors hamper the usual modification process in place at bases such as Edwards
AFB and Eglin AFB. Primary among these is the requirement to maintain the aircraft in
an operational configuration, and still meet all of the modification design safety criteria
placed on the design team by the aircraft’s single manager. Secondary to the list of
restrictions is modification time. Aircraft resources are stretched quite thin when one
considers all of the bomb wing’s operational commitments. When they must release an
aircraft for test missions, the testers must insure that schedule impacts are minimal.
Therefore, these systems must install and de-install within one to two days and be
completely portable. Placing holes in existing structures or adding new permanent
structure is unacceptable. In addition, these aircraft must be capable of returning to
combat ready status at any time. This paper centers on the B-52 bomber, and the active aircraft temporary modifications
under control of the 49th Test Squadron (49 TESTS) at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. The
B-52 presents unique design challenges all its own, in addition to the general restrictions
already mentioned. This paper will present the options that the 49 TESTS has
successfully used to overcome the aforementioned restrictions, and provide an
appropriate level of specialized instrumentation for its data collection requirements.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/607356 |
| Date | 10 1900 |
| Creators | Abbott, Laird |
| Contributors | 49th Test Squadron (Air Combat Command) |
| Publisher | International Foundation for Telemetering |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Proceedings |
| Rights | Copyright © International Foundation for Telemetering |
| Relation | http://www.telemetry.org/ |
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